The Tesserae Club
by I-AM-SiriusLOCKED
Summary: Choose life. Choose the mines. Choose tesserae. Choose hoping the odds are ever in your favor, and hope the Capitol likes you if they aren't. Choose propos and President Snow and his damn Gamesmakers deciding how you're going to die this year. Choose fighting. Choose victory in an arena they build just for you. Choose the Hunger Games. These are the Games of Haymitch Abernathy.
1. Chapter 1

_"Sometimes, nothing can be a real cool hand."_

 _\- Cool Hand_

The arena was nothing more than a mostly empty ash pit with a circle that had to be redrawn each time it was used. In theory, it was used solely for the official wrestling matches organised and maintained by the school, but the Twelve kids would use it to settle disagreements with bare knuckles and blood. As a rule, the teachers would turn a blind eye to this; knowing how to fight properly couldn't hurt the teenagers' chances in the Games, could it?

There was a crowd, because people liked free entertainment, and watching other people get hurt. The teenagers of District Twelve learnt their instincts for trouble early on in life, and before even the participants of the fight had arrived there had already been people waiting. The air was electric with excitement, for the outcome was yet to be prewritten. On one side there was a bulky wrestling champion, eighteen years old, well-fed and popular. On the other, there was a jumped-up little Seam kid with barely any meat on his bones and what was clearly a death wish. What kind of crazy would think they stand a chance against odds like that?

Haymitch Abernathy removed his shirt and handed it with a wink to the blonde hovering by his sideline. "Breathe, Ana," he told her, which had no effect on the pretty girl's fraught expression. "I'll be fine."

"He's twice your size," Ana replied, very determinedly not looking at the boy on the other side of the ring, "and two years older than you. Please, Haymitch, don't."

Haymitch remembered the switchblade in his pocket and spun it around his practised fingers, then dropped it on top of his shirt. He didn't want to have an unfair advantage. "What if I said I was doing this to protect your honour?"

"Are you?" Ana asked, wrapping his shirt neatly around the blade.

"Nope. But I'm not averse to lying."

That got a weak laugh out of her, and Haymitch took what he could get. He left a swift kiss between her eyebrows before turning and moving into the middle of the ring, folding his arms above his head as nonchalantly as he could manage. Opposite him, Leif spat at his feet.

It wasn't that Haymitch particularly _wanted_ to fight the big ruddy-faced brute that was currently looking at him in a way that most people accompanied with the thought _dinner_. But the eighteen-year-old and a few of his friends had started following Haymitch around over the last couple months, and under no circumstances would he allow them to find out where he lived.

He harboured a faint suspicion that they did it because of Ana, to frighten him away from her. So really, he was _kind_ of doing it for her, too.

"Ready to dance, Twinkle Toes?" Haymitch asked with a grin, which earned him a few snickers from the crowd that had gathered to watch. One of them, another Seam boy, rolled his eyes instead. That particular kid had been Haymitch's brother-in-arms for far too long to find him funny anymore.

"Ready to eat dust?" Leif responded, and Haymitch whistled in through his teeth.

"That _stung,_ " he replied, and without warning went in for the first punch with a well-trained fist to Leif's sternum. The bigger boy doubled over and Haymitch, instead of withdrawing the punch, brought it up and cracked into the underside of Leif's jaw.

If that had been his first ever punch, Haymitch's hand should have broken. But repeated trauma had hardened his bones and, aged sixteen, Haymitch had the hands of a trained bruiser. Still, Leif had good padding from an easy life and recovered quickly. Haymitch ducked a messy swing with a distance so fine that he felt a curl of his hair snag on one of Leif's fingers. _Don't let up,_ a rough voice in the back of his head told him, and Haymitch straightened to deliver a neat right hook to Leif's jaw, catching his head as it swung with an identical hit from his other hand. His ears heavily boxed, Leif staggered away with a yowl. As a satisfying pain blossomed over his knuckles, Haymitch turned away and held out his arms to the crowd. "Well," he said, "that was –"

Leif's meaty fist connected with the back of Haymitch's skull and Haymitch connected with the floor, stars popping over his vision. Through the pink fog that was rapidly suffusing his brain, the phrase _brick shithouse_ pushed itself to the fore of his mind. He tried to stagger to his feet before Leif could get another hit in, knowing that if he allowed that to happen the fight would be over already. It didn't help that the earth beneath appeared to be giving up on the whole "gravity" thing. The floor currently felt like it was flying around his ears.

His eyesight was gone, but with a Seam boy's instinct for danger Haymitch hazarded a guess at where Leif was standing and grunted with satisfaction as he felt his knee connect with someone's groin. Now he had his bearings, he grabbed at the back of Leif's head, drove his elbow into his nose and did the same to his right eye for good measure.

Having given himself a moment with the three harsh jabs, Haymitch staggered back and smacked himself in the face. His vision returned to him just in time to see a big, bloody, _angry_ Leif charging like a bull towards him, and then a hundred and ten kilos of well-fed muscle barrelled into his midriff and the two of them went flying, all the way out of the ring.

 _Excellent_ , Haymitch thought blearily, and Leif, resisting the arms of the people trying to pull him away, dropped a fist into Haymitch's face.

%

In the darkness, Haymitch heard two voices.

"Not two months after he got whipped, either," one of them was saying. "Some people might say he was asking for it."

"He was," another voice sniffed, one that made his heartbeat quicken. "Idiot."

"I'm actually really clever," he mumbled, and opened his eyes to see Ana and her apothecary friend leaning over him.

"Sure," said the friend, "sure you are, Abernathy."

"How's my face?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows. He seemed to be lying on somebody's kitchen table. It was a big, solid-walled room with herbs and pots hanging from the ceilings, the sides of cabinets all scrubbed as clean as anything in Twelve could get. A nice house, one that Haymitch didn't really feel like he belonged in.

"Sadly," the friend said, "not broken. Leif missed the more brittle bones, somehow."

"I'm a tough nut," Haymitch said cheerfully. Leif appeared to have punched the sense out of him.

"You're concussed, is what you are."

"Also that. You got a bucket?" The friend handed him one, and he threw up in it. "Thanks."

"You won the match," Ana told him. Her fingers were curled like vices around his left hand, and he ran his thumb over hers to reassure her. "Leif forfeited when he shoved you both out of the ring."

"That was the plan," Haymitch mumbled, wiping his mouth with the back of his right hand.

"You really expect me to believe that?" the friend asked.

"Well, it's the truth," he replied.

"Ellie," said Ana, ignoring him as most people who spent a lot of time around Haymitch learnt to do, "does he need to, like, take anything?"

"We've got some liquor in the cabinet," Ellie replied, "it might take the edge off the pain."

"No," Haymitch said flatly. He went to stand up and immediately fell over again as the world spun, sending his stomach flipping into a fully-fledged acrobatic routine. "I'm fine."

"Looks like it," said the friend.

"Your parents would be proud of your diagnosis, Elethea Hickey," Haymitch murmured, dragging himself to the back door. In his gut, the gymnastics display continued, and he could also now feel the hot, stabbing pains on the side of his face where bruised tissue was swelling. The rest of his body wasn't exactly in peak health, either. "Where's my shirt?"

Ana handed it to him and he struggled to pull it over his head, finding the arm holes on the third attempt. "Right. See you tomorrow."

"You can't go home like that!" Ana protested as he slowly made his way around the back of the apothecary building, one shoulder pressed against the brick. "You'll get arrested if you even stay conscious that long!"

"You worry too much," Haymitch informed her, and vomited again. "Urgh."

"I'm coming with you," Ana decided, and with a heavy sigh Haymitch grabbed her shoulders with both his hands - partly to reassure her, mostly to keep himself upright.

"Loitering somewhere," he told her, "is a scrawny little Seam kid that goes by the name of Roan. If you're that worried, go get him. But you're not coming into the Seam because of me."

Through a faint haze, Haymitch could see Ana's eyes were red and puffy. "You sure?" she asked him, her perfect little hands resting on his chest.

"Positive."

"Okay."

"I love you," he added. He could feel Ellie's disapproving gaze on them.

"I know. Please don't throw up on me."

"Then hurry up and get away from me," he said, and she ran off to find Roan. Out of the corner of his bruise-puffed eye, Haymitch saw Ellie fold her arms.

"The Seam's nothing to be ashamed of," she told him, as Haymitch slumped back against the wall.

"So says the merchant girl," Haymitch replied, wincing as he finally let the pain show. He hoped Leif was nursing a few wounds, as well. As official as his victory was, a vindictive little part of his brain wanted to give the wealthy town boy a permanent limp.

"If it's because of your father," Ellie continued, "lots of people have family who died in mine explosions. I'm sure Ana wouldn't care."

"Right," said Haymitch, "mine explosion." _That old chestnut._ "It's not that. The Seam's dangerous, and she's not going to get hurt because of me."

Ellie half-smiled. "That's uncharacteristically sweet of you, Haymitch Abernathy."

"You don't know me," he said, and groaned. "My head feels too heavy for my neck."

"That is a symptom of concussion, yes," Ellie nodded. "Your friend's here."

Roan was a little shorter, a little slower, a little less attractive than Haymitch, but he was also a good deal kinder. He also understood his friend well enough to allow him to fight Leif. Haymitch would have done it anyway – at least, if he knew, Roan would be there to pick up the pieces. "Thanks for looking after him," he said to Ellie as he grabbed one of Haymitch's arms and looped it over his shoulder. "He didn't deserve it."

"It was no bother," Ellie replied, brushing a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

"You're blushing," Haymitch told her, and Roan stamped on his foot. "Ouch. I didn't need that."

"Any aftercare?" Roan asked.

"Just a good night's sleep, I think. I suggested spirits to help knock him out, but he refused. Don't let him get into any more scraps for at least another week."

"Noted," Roan nodded. "Thanks for not using any medication."

That might have sounded weird, but meds meant payment, and payment was something Haymitch Abernathy could never afford.

"No problem. Be careful."

Haymitch's feet dragged a little on the floor as he and Roan circled round the town square. It would be too risky to walk through the middle of it, where Peacekeepers were circling and looking for any excuse to use their fancy toys. Haymitch wasn't entirely sure they were breaking any laws, but they couldn't be too careful.

The cracked cobbles turned to dirt tracks darkened black with coal dust, and dusk began to fall by the time they entered the Seam. The mines were not yet closed and, save for the occasional washerwoman or kid out of school, they had the road to themselves. Haymitch's nausea had passed, and now all he was left with was a dizzying and excruciating pain in his head, hands, chest...

"Upright," Roan ordered him, and Haymitch released his friend. "You steady?"

"As I'll ever be," he replied. "How do I look?"

"Awful." Roan handed him a tattered leather jacket that was older than the pair of them, and Haymitch shrugged on the garment. The familiar cracked fabric was a comfort to him in the cold, early spring air. "You okay getting back the rest of the way?"

"Yeah. Do me a favour and ask the Hickey girl out. The Games are in a few weeks, and you might not get a chance after that."

Roan clicked his tongue. "Night, Haymitch."

Haymitch saluted, and they went their separate ways - Roan to the houses that bordered the woods, and Haymitch further south into the more sparsely inhabited scrublands. The houses became shacks and the shacks became fewer, smaller, until he was right on the fringe of the Seam. Even the miners looked down on this part of Twelve.

Officially, the Abernathys still lived in the centre of the Seam. But that home had burned down years ago and they had not had the money to rebuild, so the three of them had moved here instead. Haymitch's home was one room, with holes in the ceiling and holes in the walls, and he slept on the floor by the never-lit fire.

This was why nobody could know where he lived. Haymitch was proud, far more proud than he could afford to be, so he did his damn best to keep up pretences. It was for the same reason that everyone thought Mr Abernathy had died in a mining explosion.

Sat outside his home was a scraggly little mutt with a length of rope around its neck; it ran up to him, yapping madly, and Haymitch scratched it behind the ears.

"I got nothing," he told it as it sniffed at his pockets, "unless you eat headaches."

He pushed aside the heavy cloth that served as his front door and his mother, with eyes like a hawk in the gloom, darted up to him.

"What on earth happened to you?" she asked, reaching up to push his hair back from his face. Haymitch had been taller than his mother for years. "You look like you've come straight from the Dark Days."

"Some asshole," he said, catching her hands and pulling them away. "I'm alright, really. Where's Denton?"

"At Mrs Mill's," his mother replied, still fretting over his face. "She's letting us borrow her stove for the tesserae bread."

Haymitch swore under his breath. What with Leif and everything, he had forgotten to barter at the Hob. He had nothing to trade but his hands, but still - they were skilled hands, and people would pay decent money for a bit of manual labour. His surname helped, as did the fact he had no problem with the more illicit of trades. _Beggars can't be choosers,_ the rough voice in the back of his head always said. What was the punishment, really, if the crime could feed the family?

The lash marks on Haymitch's back still stung sometimes, but they hadn't been too bad. It had been worth it, for enough money to feed his dependents and even the blasted dog for a month.

"I'll see if I can beg some ice off someone," his mother offered.

"No, don't," he protested, "please. It's not worth it."

"Haymitch, sweetheart -"

"No," he repeated. "It'll heal. Nothing's broken."

"Ma, I got the bread but I kinda burnt one end of - WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!"

Haymitch wiped the surly expression off of his face as soon as he heard that voice. Turning, he saw a skinny kid with a mop of dark hair standing in the doorway, an expression of sheer delight on their face. "Did you get in a fight? You got in a fight, didn't you? Did you win?"

"What do you think?" Haymitch asked, folding his arms. "Course I did."

"Awesome!" Denton declared, with that idolising look that can only be found on younger brothers.

"No, it's not," his mother interrupted. "Let's have a look at that bread."

As Mrs Abernathy inspected the slightly blackened discs that were supposed to be food, Haymitch sat down on the pile of blankets in the most insulated corner of the room, where his mother and brother slept. Denton dropped down next to him and stared at the bloody bruises with unabashed fascination.

"Should I be flattered or insulted that this is the most interested you've ever been in me?" Haymitch asked, pulling off his boots.

"Dunno. Do they hurt?"

"Nah," he lied. "Don't poke them, though - ow!" He grabbed Denton and wrestled him to the floor, the ten-year-old giggling as they pretended to brawl. "Since when did you get so strong?"

"Boys," their mother called, but Haymitch could hear the laughter in her voice. "Behave."

"He started it!" Haymitch yelled, picking up Denton and slinging him over his shoulder. He ignored the pain of his bruised ribs as his brother pounded on his back.

"Lemme down!"

"Never." But he dropped him back onto the blankets anyway. "You have a good day at school?"

"It was alright. We had to do history, though."

Haymitch frowned. "But that's the best subject."

"Is not."

"Is too."

Haymitch liked bickering with his brother. They had been doing it since time immemorial, and it allowed him to forget just how bad their current family situation was. Haymitch was too smart with his mouth to get a job down the mines, but now half the Hob knew him and as soon as he was out of school, he could work down there full time. Anything to stop his mother begging on the street, to get rid of the hollow look in Denton's eyes, to drag his family out of the mess his father had left them in.

 _Still,_ Haymitch figured, _it's not like my life can get much worse._ On his mother's orders, he walked up the street, still wobbling a little from the hit to the head, to the water pump and filled the bucket. He held it from the bottom, his palm covering the hole worn into the base. The icy water stung his hand and mingled with the ash that had coated it, settling in his burst knuckles and dripping onto the earth. He splashed a little of it into the tin can half that served as the dog's bowl and handed the bucket off to his mother.

"Are you going out tonight?" she asked him.

"Do you need me to? I can scrounge something up at the Hob."

"No, we're fine." Haymitch raised an eyebrow. "We can last until the weekend, anyway. I just wondered whether I should put the fire on for when you get back."

"I'm staying," he assured her. He didn't much feel up to dogsbody tasks in his current state. "I've been told I should get a good night's rest."

His mother laughed. When she did that, she looked so much like Haymitch's first memories of her that he felt only three feet tall again. "What I wouldn't give to see that. Go help your brother with his homework, will you? I don't have the brains for it."

"Fine. But I expect three courses by the time we're finished."

His mother clipped him lightly round the back of the head. "Useless boy," she chuckled.

Okay, so maybe, if he lost these two, his life _might_ get a little bit worse. And Ana too, of course. But really, apart from that, everything was terrible. His concussion was going to last for _days._

 **A/N hello, everyone. I like Haymitch too much to leave him alone, so I'm (slowly) writing my way through the 50th Games. Also, worldbuilding is fun, so expect a lot of it. If you came here from Alliance, I love you. If you're new to my stuff, I love you too. I hope you like this, and please let me know what you think. Um. I've completely forgotten how to write an A/N. Cool.**

 **Oh, and if you hadn't already clicked, the description for this story is based off the Choose Life speech from Trainspotting, which you should totally read/watch if you haven't already. The title is a parody of The Breakfast Club, obviously. Not gonna lie, I'm drawing from a** ** _lot_** **of wells, here. Enjoy!**


	2. Chapter 2

When people came to District Twelve, the mayor did his best to show them the best of it – the Town Hall, the market square, the largest and most successful mine. He never mentioned the Hob, and _certainly_ never the dog fights.

Haymitch didn't much like them, either. He felt that, if anything should be brawling for entertainment, it should be people, and people who chose to at that. But they made more money than almost anything else in Twelve, not least because they were where the racketeers gathered to when there were no Games to gamble on.

The defeated this time had been a mutt (not the Capitol kind, but the ordinary, shitty kind), an old and successful mutt with one eye and more scar than fur. It was definitely, inarguably dead, and Haymitch carried it over his shoulder to the incinerator at the back of the Hob. Sae had already inspected the corpse, and declared it too old and tough to be worth eating. Which was impressive, considering what else went in that pot of hers.

Haymitch gave the winner a dark look as he returned to the ring and sluiced away the blood with a bucket of water. It was small, inbred and practically feral, a trait its owner had encouraged at all costs and was now reaping the rewards for. Even from here, a fat pile of copper coins was visible in his left hand. The owner of the mutt was stood listlessly at the side of the ring, staring at the patch Haymitch had just washed down. He wondered whether the owner was mourning the dog, or his primary source of income.

Haymitch used the last of the water to wash the gore from his back and pulled on his shirt as he approached Japes, the racketeer who ran the dog fights.

"It's clean," Haymitch told him, "I'm done for the night."

Japes clapped him on the back. "Never thought Abernathy's kid would be good for something other than a piss-up," he leered, and Haymitch bit his tongue. Japes was a wiry little man, but he was not shy with his fists and besides, he paid well. "Here's your pocket money."

Haymitch put the coins in his jacket pocket and clasped his fist tightly around them. "Buy that poor bastard a drink," he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the loser, "he looks like he needs it."

"If you fancy him so much, do it yourself," Japes said, and laughed at his own joke. "What happened to your face, anyway?"

The swelling had gone down, but one side of Haymitch's face was still a magnificent swirl of black and purple. "Merchant kid."

"Did he get what was coming to him?"

"Yeah. Night."

"Heal well, pretty boy."

The dog fight had finished early, so Haymitch found himself sat on one end of Greasy Sae's table with a bowl of something suspiciously indefinable. Sef, one of the molls, joined him with a bottle of gin and an offer to spend the night. He declined both.

"How's your girl?" Sae asked him, smacking Sef's hand away from the pot.

"Still a disappointment to her family, apparently. Anyone would think I was disreputable," he said with a crooked smile, and the two women laughed.

"She's pretty," Sef informed him, licking her bowl with a cat-like tongue. "You'll have to watch out for her."

"You jealous?"

"Of course," Sef said coyly, and Haymitch chuckled. He liked Sef, who flirted freely and without care. She was currently sat with her feet, bare and filthy, propped up in Haymitch's lap. "Stop pretending, Abernathy. You want me."

"Let me have my denial," he said, and glanced up at the moonlight filtering through the window; by the looks of it, the Eveningstar had been and left. "I should go."

"Kisses are only tuppence!" Sef told him in one last effort, and he yanked on the string that was holding the back of her dress together. She shrieked, gathering the threadbare material to her heavy chest.

"See you in the morning," Sae said as Sef rearranged herself, "I got some heavy things need lifting. You can earn your dinner, if you're lucky."

"Lucky isn't the word I'd use for getting some of your cooking."

"Ha! And give my love to your poor mother."

Haymitch left the Hob and stuck to the shadows around the edge of the market square, staying away from the stocks and gallows that cast skeletal black shapes over the ground. There was a hanging scheduled tomorrow, and all day in the Hob people had been talking about it, about the man foolish enough to strike his wife when she was sleeping with the Head Peacekeeper. It would be at dawn, Haymitch had heard, and apparently the rope had already been tied at a length too short to ensure a quick death. The odds were good on the man being a dancer.

He skirted round to the house that backed onto the cloth merchant's house, dislodged a fragment of rubble with his foot, took aim and flung it at one of the upper floor windows. A moment later Ana appeared, her curly hair tied back from her face.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed down at him. "My parents -"

"Are still up in the front, I checked."

Ana bit her flush lip. "Stay there," she ordered, and disappeared from the window. A moment later she slipped out of the back door, wrapped in a coat she had pulled over her nightshirt. "It's freezing!"

"It's barely spring," Haymitch pointed out, "what did you expect?"

She hopped up and down, swearing under her breath as her feet picked up the mud of the back track, and Haymitch scooped her up and held her at eye level. She wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him with a kiss that was worth a damn sight more than tuppence.

Analiese Smythe's eyelashes were long and heavy, dancing around her blue eyes whenever she blinked. Her cheeks were pink and full, and her hands had the soft skin of someone who had never had to work to survive. She was impossibly fair and perfect, and, Roan was quick to remind Haymitch, completely out of his league.

She was wonderfully warm beneath the coat and shirt, and shrieked when Haymitch slipped his icy fingers up her back. "Don't be mean," she told him. "Don't be mean or I'm going back inside."

He put her down, and she balanced on the toes of his boots so she wouldn't have to stand in the half-frozen mud. "The twins got a songbird," she told him, her arms hooked over his shoulders. "Well, Maysilee did. Lilymae hates it, she says she'll have nothing to do with it."

"Fascinating," said Haymitch, and Ana giggled.

"How was your day, then?"

He thought of the dog fight. "Nothing interesting."

"Liar." She kissed him again, and he could feel her smile in the kiss. "Daddy will come in soon. You should go before he catches you."

"Probably," Haymitch agreed, and walked forward so that Ana was pressed between him and the wall. "Not that he'll catch me."

"He will one day, you know," Ana said as he played with a lock of her hair. "You can't run away from him forever."

"Wanna bet?"

"Gambling's your business, not mine." She caught one of his hands and laced their fingers together. "Haymitch, the Games..."

"You're only in that bowl five times," he reassured her, "you'll be fine, I promise."

"But what about you? You take tesserae, don't you?"

"Don't worry about me."

"You don't exactly give me much choice," she said, her free hand tracing around the bruises on his face. "I love you."

"Should hope so," he grinned, and left one last kiss on the tip of her nose. "See you at school."

"Aren't you going to the hanging tomorrow?" Ana asked, as he started walking away.

"I try to avoid them. Never really found murder that entertaining," he admitted.

"If only the Capitol thought the same way."

"Then what would we do with our unwanted kids?" he asked.

"Haymitch!"

"Kidding, kidding."

The hanged man was, indeed, a dancer, and Haymitch won a week's worth of food money on the execution even if he didn't attend. His errands for Sae had already covered his family, though, so he bought Denton a shirt so that he wouldn't just wear beggar's rags and hand-me-downs. Haymitch found Roan in the Hob about mid-morning, trying to sell his squirrels.

"That one didn't get hit in the eye," Haymitch pointed out as he bartered with Rye Mellark's father on his rounds around the back of the townhouses.

Roan glared at him. "Still a clean hit," he said, and Haymitch shrugged.

"Just making sure it's a fair trade," he said to the baker, clasping his hands behind his head. Roan ended up selling it for a little less than usual, and punched Haymitch on the arm once the door was closed on them.

"What did you do that for?"

"To see the look on your face. And yeah, it was worth it."

"I didn't ask."

"You were about to," Haymitch said, taking the last carcass from him and swinging it around on its string. "They're talking about upping the hunting punishment to a bullet in the head, y'know."

"Rather that than starve to death," Roan shrugged.

Haymitch laughed, briefly and without humour. "You know what's messed up?"

"Here we go," Roan muttered under his breath.

"That Twelve takes out more tesserae than Eleven, even though we're less than half the size. They released the statistics on television last night, I saw it on the wire-up in the Hob. You know why?"

"I have a feeling you're about to tell me."

"We're the coal district. We don't even _use_ coal, Roan. We have to buy wood for fuel, and there's no land with enough life in it to farm. We have no primary resources. So we can't grow anything ourselves anyway, and we have to pay ridiculous amounts for food. While Eleven get a share of what they farm for the Capitol, even if they get it illegally."

"Hunting's illegal," Roan pointed out, "and here we are."

"Exactly what I was thinking," said an accented voice behind them, and the two boys froze. "Turn around."

Haymitch spun on his heel to see the Head Peacekeeper stood there with his arms folded and an expression of pure thunder on his face. And then Haymitch realised that he was the one holding the contraband dead rabbit.

"I know you lot are slow," said the Peacekeeper, "so I'll explain what's going to happen to you."

"Uh oh," Roan whispered, as Haymitch raised an eyebrow. He didn't much like being talked down to, especially not by Capitol drones.

"Do you know why I'm about to give you the lashing you always deserved, boy?"

Haymitch scratched his head. "Is it the overdue library books?" he asked, and doubled over as the Peacekeeper's baton connected with his midriff.

"That's it!" he snarled, shackling Haymitch's hands behind his back and dragging him into the square, where the last few stragglers from the hanging were still hanging around. _Think, Haymitch. Think your way out of this._

"Seventeen B," Haymitch wheezed at Roan.

"What?"

"SEVENTEEN SODDING B!" The baton connected with his knee and Haymitch went down with a howl at the whipping post.

"Oh, right!" Roan ran forward. "I want to share."

The Peacekeeper paused, utterly nonplussed. It didn't take much to get him to that state. "What?"

"Decree 17B of the Inter-District laws of Panem state that a person of reaping age can volunteer to share the punishment of another at an equal amount, exempting capital punishments," Roan reeled off, just as Haymitch had recited to him in the past. "Meaning, I want half his lashes. Please."

"Don't say please," Haymitch groaned.

"I panicked!" Roan hissed out of the corner of his mouth.

Other Peacekeepers were approaching now, including a few familiar faces from the Hob. "He's right, sir," one of them said, recognising Haymitch as the boy who turned a blind eye to anything short of almost nothing.

"Fine," the Head scowled. "That's thirty each for illegal hunting. I get the smart mouth."

Haymitch hadn't been wearing his leather jacket that morning; good thing too, because his shirt was ruined as they tore it from his back. The scars from his last whipping still hadn't fully healed, and Haymitch had learnt that it hurt less when his muscles were relaxed. Unfortunately, it was pretty difficult to unwind in circumstances like these.

The air cracked with the sound of reeling leather.

The first hit was agonising, but it didn't quite break the toughened skin of his back. Haymitch writhed up against the pole with a grimace, refusing to make any noise, and the second lash came down across his shoulder blades and reopened an old wound. He could feel his blood, hotter than the air around him, trickling slowly down his back as though reluctant to leave his body.

On the post next to him, he heard Roan cry out as his own punishment started. They both knew that, while it was not technically capital, nobody survived the amount of lashes decreed for this level of crime, and Haymitch had broken into the Town Hall's library one day in the hope of finding a solution. This was the closest thing to one he had discovered – dividing the pain meant less for everyone, overall. More people with scarred backs meant fewer corpses being burnt at the graveyard to the west.

As the third, fourth, fifth lashes came down, Haymitch's blood ran cold as he heard a familiar voice call out his name.

"Haymitch! What happened?"

Denton. His family must have come out to exchange tesserae; once in the town itself, a whipping was impossible to miss. Out of the corner of his eye, Haymitch could see the boy running towards him. "Don't touch him!" he roared through gritted teeth as the Peacekeeper's started forward, and was powerless to stop them as they knocked him back with a cuff to the head.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Haymitch screamed, as his mother ran forward and picked up Denton's trembling form. _That's right,_ the voice in his head rumbled. _Rip their throats out._

"Shut up," the Head ordered him, and Haymitch let himself go to the pain. There were so many hits that eventually they blurred together and it became a relentless onslaught of splitting skin and the sounds of his friend crying. Through the agony, Haymitch concentrated only on praying that his mother would have had the good sense to get Denton back home, safely inside the Hob, anywhere away from _this._

At some point, he became aware of hands on his front, releasing him from his shackles and manhandling him onto a slat of wood. _Snow,_ he thought numbly, then remembered it was too late in the year for that. Which would mean setting wounds in the humid heat and, if he was lucky, morphling.

"Boy can't keep out of trouble," somebody said, as the sun baked down on his shredded back. "He's lucky Roan was there."

Shadows shrouded the sun as he was taken inside. Haymitch whimpered as they dropped the slat onto a table, and cool, steady hands wrapped around his wrists. "Don't move," said the voice of Mrs Hickey, "you'll make it worse."

"R... Roan..."

"My husband's with him. Just you worry about yourself, Mr Abernathy. And your brother's fine too, nothing more than a few scrapes and a nasty bump."

With that reassurance, Haymitch tried to pass out, but the pain kept bringing him back. Somebody shoved a belt into his mouth and he bit down onto it with each scream as Mrs Hickey rearranged the loose skin on his back.

"You're lucky," she said, "there's still enough left for me to stitch it. Elethea, get the ethanol. We'll need to clean it."

The stinging of the alcohol was almost as bad as sustaining the wounds themselves. "They need morphling," Haymitch heard Ellie say, a tremble in her voice. "Mother, please."

"You know neither of them can afford to pay for it."

"Then I will! Please, Ma. They're my friends."

"Damn this weather," Mrs Hickey muttered. "We still had snow this time last year. Fine. If you really think mine fodder's worth it."

Over the sound of stressed voices Haymitch heard the clinking of glass containers, and the pain of the needle was so small it was almost unnoticeable as it slid into the skin of his neck. A wonderful numbness seeped out through his ruined form, and Haymitch slumped onto the table as the morphling took over.  
%

The voice in the back of his head would not leave him alone. _You have to get up, Haymitch,_ it told him. _You have to look after yourself. Fuck knows who else will._

He tried to ignore it…

"Haymitch, sweetheart. It's alright, you're alright. It's just a dream."

The sound of his mother's voice pulled him out of the pleasant realm of sleep and into a sluggish half-wakefulness. She was stroking his forehead, untangling his sweat-slicked her with her fingers.

"Denton," he slurred.

"Mrs Mill has him, don't worry."

On the other side of the massive table Haymitch saw the recumbent figure of Roan, whose back looked as bad as his felt. Ellie had fallen asleep with her head on his arm, a bloody cloth in her hand. This time, Ana was nowhere to be seen. He could forgive her for that, though; getting beaten up was one thing, but a Peacekeeper's punishment was another entirely. A girl like her didn't deserve to see something like this.

"'M sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be ridiculous. It wasn't your fault." His mother took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "You've got more stitches than I've had hot dinners. Isn't that something?"

 _Fix it,_ said the voice. It tasted like the smell of poppies, and it was trying to drag him back under. It was a useful voice, and Haymitch hated it. Hated it because it wasn't his, but a memory of someone else.

Haymitch's back felt as though it was at the ooze stage of healing, which was not a particularly enjoyable one. "I gotta make sure you're okay," he mumbled, trying to get up and groaning as his stitches strained.

"Sweetheart, I'm here. That's just the morphling talking, don't worry."

"I don't want to sleep. I'm not… I'm not leaving you alone…"

But his mother started singing, a soft lullaby song that she still used on Denton sometimes. It worked too well, and Haymitch let the morphling take him again. It was a small mercy that, this time round, all he could hear was silence.


	3. Chapter 3

Haymitch's wounds healed, slowly and painfully, during which time he was effectively useless. He did not go to school, did not see Ana, and because he couldn't work he had to watch his family begin to starve again.

The years before Haymitch had been old enough to apply for tesserae had been the worst. His mother begged what she could get, and often came back beaten up by Peacekeepers as punishment for vagrancy. Haymitch hid his famished figure beneath the old leather coat and passed out from hunger in the back of classes, took to hiding in the school library for want of somewhere warm to stay for a couple of hours.

It wasn't until he was queuing at his very first tesserae exchange that he met Roan, who was alive purely by virtue of his hunting skills. Haymitch was too impatient to hunt, but Roan took pity on the Abernathys and brought them enough meat that they just managed to live through the winter. In spring, Haymitch had gained enough weight to be useful, and them he had started earning any way short of begging.

But this time, Roan was just as incapacitated as Haymitch. It would take weeks for his back to heal well enough for him to work, and his family could starve to death in that time.

As soon as Haymitch could move, he and Roan took out each other's stitches with his switchblade doused in a stolen bottle of ethanol. As Roan worked away with steady, hunter's hands, Haymitch dragged a book sat in the corner of his little house towards him with his foot and opened it with curiosity.

It had been filled with Roan's neat, rounded handwriting and a few crude drawings of plants. "You spelt 'beeswax' wrong," he told him, "it's an 'x', not a 'k'. What is this, anyway?"

"My mother brought it back for me," Roan explained, and Haymitch winced as he pulled the silk out of his wounds. "Stay still. She said it would keep me occupied."

Haymitch nodded; his own brother had done something similar, having returned one afternoon with two books from the school library – one on sleight of hand with a big "REDACTED" stamped across the front, and another on evolution. He had already known most of what was in the first one anyway, having picked it up from years in the Hob, but had spent the rest of that day reading the latter one cover to cover.

Haymitch was a smart kid, and read as hungrily as other Seam kids ate. There wasn't much in Twelve's libraries that wasn't either Capitol propaganda or books about coal, but what there was he had sought out with a burning curiosity. In the book on evolution, it had talked about trees in rainforests, where the closer to the ground they were, the larger their leaves, so that it was easier for them to catch rainwater. Natural selection – not selective breeding, which was choosing the livestock with the biggest muscles for the largest cuts. Upon reading about it, Haymitch had thought about the people of Districts 10 and 11, whose dark skin ensured they never burnt despite spending most of their time out in the open sun; about the citizens of One, who were as pretty as the things they made. Had that been natural selection, he wondered – that the people of each district were so suited to their industry? Or, at the very inception of Panem, had the Capitol just herded the people up and allocated them to the areas they suited best?

"Done," Roan declared, handing Haymitch back his knife. "That was disgusting."

Roan would never be interested in how the plants in his book had adapted to survive. All he cared about was about whether they would keep _him_ alive. Haymitch admired his single-mindedness.

"Thanks." The shirt stung on Haymitch's raw flesh as he pulled it on, but at least the wounds were properly closed now.

"Where you going?" Roan asked him.

"Hob. Need to grovel," he explained. "Japes won't be happy."

"Haymitch, you can't work. Besides, it's a school day. If anything, you should go there."

"Missed too much to catch up," Haymitch said, "besides, it's not like it's doing me any good. My life got decided years ago."

"You're kidding. You can't just drop out," Roan protested.

Haymitch turned round. "I don't have a choice!" he snapped. "Shit, Roan, have you seen Denton recently? Mum hasn't eaten for two weeks so he has food, and he's starving to death anyway. I can't just go and spend my day in a damn classroom while they waste away. And it's two years before the mines are even an option."

"There's got to be another way," Roan insisted, and Haymitch snorted.

"Yeah," he said, "I win the Hunger Games. Because _that's_ going to happen."

He slammed the door of Roan's house behind him and stamped up the track towards the town, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Spring had settled in properly while he had been lying prone inside, and the scalloped blossoms spiralled out of the trees in pristine pinks and whites until they were trampled into the coal dust of the road.

"Where d'you think you're going, boy?"

Haymitch looked up to see Greasy Sae marching up the track towards him, a massive pot resting on one hip. Beside her, one of her daughters, a few years older than Haymitch, had a sack of firewood slung over her shoulder.

"Work," he said.

"No, you're not. About turn and back to your mother, young Mr Abernathy. Come on, we haven't got all day."

Haymitch stared at the pot. "We don't need your charity," he said dully.

"I shan't be seeing Karell Abernathy starve to halfway to whatever because of the foolishness of her man," Sae stated, "whether that be husband or son. Don't think you can argue your way out of this one, Haymitch. I've raised four daughters, and you don't hold a candle to the teen years."

Haymitch opened his mouth, but then thought better of it and clamped it shut again. He followed Sae and his daughter back to where the shell of their old house stood, now just a few blackened beams, and felt the familiar feeling of shame grow like rot inside him.

"How long ago did this happen?" Sae asked, staring at the wreckage.

"About a year after my father got himself killed," Haymitch said. He had been a little less than Denton's age when the mayor's man knocked on the door and told them that Rath Abernathy's body had been found in an "abandoned storage facility" Haymitch had, even then, known as the Hob. It was the only place in Twelve people could buy alcohol, after all. Where else would his father be?

"This way," he said, not looking Sae and her daughter in the eye as he led them to the outskirts of the Seam.

His mother was at the pump, rinsing their clothes clean in the bucket. "Haymitch!" she exclaimed, hurrying forward. "Where were you?"

"Doesn't matter." He left the women to it and headed for Denton, who was playing with the dog at the other end of the street. "Miss me?"

Denton ran up and hugged him, and Haymitch bit back a yelp as his brother's hands gripped onto the tender skin of his back. "Where'd you go?"

"Secret places," he said, "hey, Sae's brought some of her stew. There's probably a bone in there for the dog."

"His name is Rolf."

"His name is the dog," Haymitch responded, "and since when?"

"Since you brought him home!"

The dog had been that rare thing, a survivor that had lost a dog fight. Haymitch had been about to chuck it in the incinerator when it had woken up, bitten him in four places, and leapt over his shoulder in a bid for freedom. Stray dogs got shot, and not wanting its second chance to get wasted, Haymitch had with no small degree of difficulty caught the dog and brought it home. It was breedless, nameless and a pretty good security alarm.

"I caught him," Haymitch reminded Denton, "and I say your name's dumb. And I'm older, so I win by proxy."

Denton pouted, but whistled to the dog and the two of them ran towards the house, where his mother had taken the food and Sae inside. Haymitch sagged, surprised at how exhausted he suddenly felt when it was not yet midday. Suddenly, he realised that he really, _really_ missed Ana. _I'll go find her in the morning,_ he thought, for there would be no school tomorrow. It was the reading of the card.

%

"She's not here."

Haymitch didn't like the way Smythe was grinning at him. "Where is she?" he asked, running his thumb along the groove of his switchblade in his pocket.

"I don't think that's any of your business, d'you?"

"Kinda," Haymitch shrugged. Smythe was very large, but it was more fat than muscle. And besides, he was a fast runner. If you had a quick enough sprint you could cheek anyone you wanted, as long as they didn't have a gun or exceptionally good throwing skills.

"Maybe you should ask her about that."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

" _Abernathy!_ "

Haymitch glanced over his shoulder to see Lilymae Donner glaring at him. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"Don't harass people," she ordered, "walk with me."

Intrigue overcoming his natural contrariness, he wandered over to join one half of the district's prettiest twins. He knew that the Donners were friends with Ana, but he had never spoken to them before and had been perfectly happy with the arrangement. The only other connection to them was that he would have to drag Denton away from the Donner family's shop window whenever they passed it, as it was invariably filled with sweets of every color.

"You don't want to get on Smythe's bad side," she told him, as they looped around the whipping post. "If Ana wants to see you, then she'll come find you. It's safer that way."

"Safe?" Haymitch repeated. "You make it sound like we're in the arena already."

"Mmm," Lilymae said, "reading of the card, tonight."

"Right," said Haymitch, "was there anything else?"

"Sorry?"

"I assume you dragged me away from my in-law for a reason."

Lilymae opened her mouth, kept it that way for two whole seconds, and then shut it again. "… No," she said, "no, nothing."

Haymitch narrowed his eyes. "You sure about that, lady?"

"Yes. Just stay out of Smythe's way."

"And is Ana alright?"

"What? Yes," Lilymae snapped, "she's fine. Her life doesn't revolve around some scruffy Seam boy, you know. She has other things to occupy her time with."

"I only asked!" Haymitch retorted.

"Sorry. I'm just a bit stressed, that's all. It's a big day, I should get back…" she hurried away, leaving a mildly confused Haymitch stood alone in the middle of the square.

"Girls!" he exclaimed, to the world in general. "I don't… _girls!_ "

%

"Sef?"

"Haymitch?" the whore asked coyly, as she settled into her skirts like a bantam in her nest. Everyone who couldn't afford a television had gathered in the Hob to watch the reading of the card. They were a sparse and motley group, beggars and nomads and those who lived on the very fringes of society. Haymitch had a sneaking suspicion that, for many of them, the Hob _was_ their home. He knew his mother didn't like taking Denton into a place of such ill-repute, but there wasn't another option if she didn't want to ask for charity from a neighbour (which she almost never did). At least the kid had the dog to distract him from the nefarious goings-on around him. Haymitch was keeping an eye on the mongrel to ensure it didn't get napped by one of the gamblers for the fights. Not even Hunger Games tributes had to fight twice, one way or another.

"How does your brain work?" he said.

"Huh?"

"Like… women," he said, "you're all insane."

"I often say the same about men," she said, "lots of the time, they've got syphilis in the brain. Nasty stuff. That or hormones. In my experience, it's always either syphilis or hormones. Girlfriend getting you down?"

"Not directly," he said, "I haven't seen her."

"Well, it's a big day. You're the least of her worries."

"Right," said Haymitch, unconvinced.

Sef gave him a sharp look with her heavy, babydoll eyes. "If you want my opinion," she said slowly, "you're just pretending your girlie's your biggest problem so you don't have to think about what's coming up in ten minutes."

"Good thing I didn't ask for your opinion then, isn't it?"

"There's a rumor going round that they're dropping the minimum age for the Quell. Have you heard it? Haymitch? Haymitch, have you –"

"Yes!" he snapped, so sharply that Sef flinched. "Sorry."

"'S fine." Her eyes moved away from him to Denton, who was sat on the floor and scratching the dog's fleabitten belly with unrivalled enthusiasm. "How old is he?"

"Ten. Nice round number to drop down to."

"He'd still probably only have his name in there once. Whereas _you_ –"

"I'm not worried about me," Haymitch said, "I'll be fine."

"That's the last thing your father ever said to me, y'know."

He gritted his teeth and stared down at his hands, which had curled into fists in his lap. "That doesn't surprise me." That flaw had killed Rath Abernathy almost as much as his drinking had, but it wasn't a rare trait. When you were so poor, all you could afford to have was pride. Asking for help, admitting that something was wrong, doing anything other than coping was unimaginable. It was the same reason his mother scrubbed dishes clean even when there wasn't enough food to get them dirty, the same reason he never told anyone where he lived.

Pride didn't fill an empty stomach, though. Pride didn't get rid of the starving look in Denton's eyes, or the bones sticking out of his mother's skin. Tesserae did. Haymitch could never ask for help to save himself, but he could just about do it for family. That was what made him different from his father.

 _You keep telling yourself that, kid. You can't catch a storm in a bucket. You can't save them._

"Haymitch!"

"Huh?"

"It's starting."

He shook himself and fixed his gaze onto the screen projected onto the wall, which showed a beautiful plaza far finer than the real, coal-blackened world that surrounded it. As he did, Denton left the dog alone for a moment and sat beside him, knees drawn up to his chest. "Hey," said Haymitch, putting an arm around the boy, "it'll be fine. I promise. You'll be fine."


	4. Chapter 4

"We're all gonna _die_!"

"Ana, come on," Haymitch said, as she sobbed onto his shoulder. "It could be a lot worse. Look at me." He took her tear-slick face in his hands and tilted it up to face his own, so close that he could count the freckles on her nose. "The odds are in your favor, remember?"

Her fingers curled around his wrist, gossamer-soft. "But they aren't for you," she whispered.

"Ah, don't worry about me. I'm not nearly interesting enough to get reaped," he told her, and she laughed weakly. "That's my girl. There's a lot of kids in District Twelve that aren't us, Analiese."

"I hate it when you call me that," she mumbled.

"I know."

It was twilight, and the two of them were in the district graveyard. There were no bodies here, since it was tradition in 12 to burn the corpses (if there was even one to burn, for often the mines claimed every last trace), but wood and stone markers were arranged in tight, wiggling lines, woven through with wildflowers. It was a nice place, quiet, and you could see every star in the sky.

Haymitch had his back against the fence and Ana was curled up in his lap, his leather jacket pulled around both of them to trap the warmth and keep it safe. "You really think we'll be okay?" she asked him.

He looked at her – no, he didn't. He drunk her in like she was water in the desert, searched her face for every last detail he had already memorised, ached for her in a way he didn't know was possible. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, but the grey-blue in them still struck him with its clarity. She couldn't die. It was a sheer impossibility. She was far too lovely for such a common thing as death.

"Really," he told her.

"Alright, then." She rested her head on his collarbone. "You're really uncomfortable, you know that?"

"Sorry I'm not fat like the merchant boys."

"Don't be mean."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "So I'm the bad guy now, am I?"

He liked the way she smiled, with her teeth biting into her bottom lip. "Maybe," she said, "maybe I like that."

"Is that so?" he asked, then grabbed her waist and rolled them both over so that he was on top of her. "Tell me more."

"Haymitch!" she shrieked. "You're getting my dress all muddy!"

"Then take it off," he said, "I don't mind."

"Oh, you're _awful_."

"Only because I love you," he said, and kissed her.

%

Haymitch crept back home when the moon was at its highest, and let out a silent sigh of relief when, upon closing the door behind him, he was greeted by the soft snores of his mother. She panicked when he came home late, and he hated to upset her, but it seemed like tonight she had realized he would be staying out of trouble, more or less. He pulled his boots off and curled up by the still-warm fire, its heat just able to reach him. He thought that he had got away with it, but just as he let his eyes begin to close there was a rustle of blankets and Denton shuffled over to him.

"Where were you?" he whispered, lying down next to him.

"It's a secret," Haymitch replied, refusing to open his eyes. "Go to sleep."

"No. Were you seeing the pretty blonde girl from town again?"

"None of your business."

"I don't like her," Denton continued. "I don't like merchant kids. They're mean."

"I don't remember asking for your opinion," Haymitch murmured.

"I'm just worried about you. You're my brother, I want to look after you," Denton replied. Haymitch opened one eye at last, and saw that the boy's bottom lip was stuck out.

"This is about the Quell," he said, "isn't it?"

"No," said Denton, and frowned still further. "Mish, I don't want you to die."

Ouch. That stung. When Denton was still crawling, the closest he could get to saying his brother's name was 'Mish'. It had been his first word, if you could call it a word. Nowadays, he only used it when he was really scared.

"Don't leave me alone with Ma. Please."

Denton was too young to remember his father, thank goodness. The closest thing he had was Haymitch and, well, that still wasn't amazing. But they made do. "You're not getting rid of me that easy," he replied.

"But your name's in there so many times. What if you're reaped?"

"Then I'll just win," Haymitch shrugged. "No big deal."

"You really think you can?"

"Doesn't seem too hard."

"You promise?"

"Denton Abernathy," Haymitch said solemnly, "I promise to you that if I get reaped, I'm winning the Hunger Games and we can live in one of those big houses in the Victors' Village."

"Can Rolf come?"

"You mean the dog? Sure."

"Promise?"

Haymitch licked his thumb and held it out. "Promise."

Denton nodded solemnly and did the same thing, pressing his thumb into Haymitch's.

"I can't believe you think I'd let you outlive me," he added with a smirk. "Like I'd allow you to beat me at something."

"I beat you at stuff all the time!"

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

%

"Your brother's worried about you, you know."

"I do know," Haymitch told his mother, "I talked to him, too. What about you?"

She didn't stop to even look up at him, but kept beating the sodden shirt against the washing board. "The blasted thing's held together with dirt," she cursed under her breath, and Haymitch folded his arms.

"Ma."

"Oh," she said, "it's not your job to ask about me, sweetheart. You just go and meet Roan, see if he's got any squirrels going cheap."

Roan always gave the Abernathys free meat. Haymitch wasn't sure if his mother knew this, but if not then he certainly wasn't going to be the one to tell her. "I'm not a kid anymore, you know. You can't keep trying to protect me."

"I'm your mother, Haymitch," she replied, glancing up at him for half a moment while she wrung out the shirt. "You'll always be my baby boy – don't roll your eyes like that at me, young man. As long as I'm alive I'm going to be protecting you, whether you like it or not. When I'm dead, then you can do what you want. But while I'm still here, I'm going to do my best to stop the world from doing to you what it did to your father."

"I'm not like him," Haymitch said sharply.

"I know. You're kind, sweetheart. You try to hide it because it's a weakness in a world like this, but you are. Now run along and buy me a squirrel for dinner."

Haymitch found Roan twenty minutes later, crawling under the chainlink fence that surrounded District 12. "I've got rabbits and fish," he declared with a note of pride. Haymitch almost envied him for being able to find happiness in such simple things. "You coming to the Hob with me?"

"Yeah. People mug you off when you're on your own, little hunter boy. You're too soft, is your problem."

"Between us, we're almost normal."

"Almost." Haymitch stuck his hands deep in his pockets as he followed Roan down the road that would lead into town. "So. The Quell."

Roan adjusted the strap of his game bag across his shoulder. "What about it?" he asked, eyes on the horizon.

"What do you think?"

"Could be worse," he shrugged. "At least, that's what I'm telling everyone. I guess you're doing the same?"

"Yeah."

"And what do you _really_ think?"

"I think…" Haymitch kicked at a piece of flint on the path, which went skittering off into the dusty meadow. "I think it's so simple that the twist is hardly going to be the worst part of this Games. They'll mess with something – the sponsor system, the Cornucopia. Make it even harder to survive than normal. Haim's the Head Gamesmaker this year, and he's always been the perverted bastard who comes up with the twists for the last decade. Remember the mutts in the wasteland Games?"

Roan shuddered. "Yeah," he said, "I remember them."

"Those kids are going to have a whale of a time."

"Sure you're not getting reaped, then?" Roan asked, almost smiling as the conversation turned away from the nightmarish apparitions that had appeared in the Games a few years back. "Still stuck on your conspiracy theory that –"

"It's not a conspiracy theory," Haymitch said for the thousandth time. "You're three times as likely to get reaped if you're related to a Victor, and the tributes are far too interesting to be randomly selected. Boring guy like me wouldn't catch the Capitol's eye for a moment, and they're not leaving it up to chance."

"Then why say that they do?" Roan asked, ever the skeptic of Haymitch's wild plans.

"To give us hope. And that makes them more powerful than anything."

"Well," Roan laughed, "now you're really sounding crazy."

Now it was Haymitch's turn to shrug. "You can't trust them," he said, "not anyone. Not even the ones who think they're trying to help. It's been taught into their bones, see? We're not people to them, we're pets. People can love their pets, but they're still not human. We don't fit into their perfect idea of society – we're on the fringes, we're poor, we're ugly, we rebel. So instead of just going to war, as though we're equal to them, they create a system where we're… _nothing._ And we all fall for it, too. They're bigger than us. Better than us. It's not the fear of dying in the Games that gives them their power, it's the hope that, one day, we'll be able to escape this and be like them. The Games are proof. We betray each other in a heartbeat if it means we can win their approval. And you really think they're leaving any of that up to _chance_?"

They had stopped walking, without either of them even noticing it. Roan was looking at Haymitch with uncharacteristic sharpness, a small Seam boy built for survival and the hunt, who could never square off against anyone. Those two boys were so different to each other, and yet somehow both understood perfectly the necessity to survive.

"What?" asked Haymitch.

"You're too clever for your own good."

"Life's not easy," he retorted, "I'm not letting it bend me over and –"

"Alright, alright. I get it. You're a natural born worldshaker, or something like that. Come on, let's get to the Hob before we're flocked with Peacekeepers."

"You're scared," said Haymitch, "aren't you? You'll be alright, Roan. You're even more boring than I am."

"Gee," said Roan drily, "thanks, Abernathy."

Haymitch held out a hand. "I give you my word, Roan Everdeen," he said, "that we are both going to live long and happy lives. The Games will never touch us."

"Your word, huh?" Roan said slowly, and after a moment's hesitation clasped his friend's hand. "That's the best weapon we've got. Alright then, Haymitch. And if anything ever happens to me or my family, I'm blaming you."


	5. Chapter 5

And then, all too soon, it was the day of the reaping.

"Comb your hair for once in your life, will you?" Haymitch's mother snapped, and he jerked out of the way as she reached up to smooth it down. "You look common."

Haymitch bit his tongue before he could point out that they _were_ common, if even that, and looped the dog's tatty twine leash around the post. "He's not coming," he said firmly, as Denton opened his mouth to protest. "The Peacekeepers'll shoot him before we even reach the square."

"Haymitch!" his mother scolded.

"What?" he replied, "it's true!"

"You're upsetting your brother!"

"What, on this happy day? _Never_!"

"You listen to me, young man –"

"Spare me," Haymitch snarled, "I'm going to find Roan. Walk on without me, I don't care. I wouldn't want to upset you with my company."

"Haymitch, wait –" Denton began, but the elder brother had already turned on his heel and marched away.

At this point, arguments on reaping day were practically a tradition. Haymitch didn't like to show fear, not outright anyway, but it still crept in by manifesting itself as anger towards the people closest to him. It wasn't their fault, not really – but the world enraged him, and they were in the direct line of fire. Most of the time he could keep it under control, but on days like this it peaked. He didn't like it when that happened, which of course only made him angrier.

 _I wonder who you get that from, huh, kid?_

He kicked at a stray lump of coal with a hoarse cry and sent it flying across the dusty meadow. He hated this District. Hated that it was filthy, and small, and impoverished, hated its people from the scrawniest Seam kid to the corpulent mayor, hated that he couldn't even breathe without the coal crawling down his throat and blackening him, poisoning him just like his father, from the inside out.

"You too, then."

Haymitch looked around and saw Roan cowering on the other side of the road. His eyes were bloodshot. "You didn't see that," he growled, and Roan nodded.

"Come on," he said in a brittle voice, "or we'll be late."

As they got closer to the town square they followed a trickle of people, families and racketeers and those with nothing better to do with their morning, as the trickle became a stream and the stream a river of gray. In districts like Eleven it would be a flood right about now. Peacekeepers sifted the eligible kids from the crowd, catalogued and shepherded them into pens according to age and gender. Haymitch couldn't help but think about how much of a dent the reaping would make on their tiny population this year. The hole was always felt, of course it was, but this time it would be gaping.

"Hey," said Roan, his shoulder pressed into Haymitch's arm, "I can see your brother, he's right over –"

"I know," said Haymitch, still staring straight ahead at the empty stage.

"Don't you want to –"

"No."

Just as Roan opened his mouth to reason, the giant screens imported on the Capitol trains started to flicker and Haymitch prepared himself for another year's worth of propaganda, nicely condensed into one five-minute, grandiosely cinematic piece of film. Any other day he would have raged against it and happily taken the consequences, but his anger had already reached its peak and was now crystallising into something harder and more hidden than diamond. By the time the film finished, his expression had hardened to stone and he didn't even bat an eyelid when the jewel-bright escort, Polyxena Pots, tottered onto the stage in her wig and jewels.

"Good morning everybody!" she trilled, paper-white hands clutched together at her sternum. "Well – isn't this _exciting_?"

She was met with resounding silence.

"I know, I know! Now, we're understandably running a _teensy_ bit behind schedule, so I'm going to keep this nice and brisk. Well, as always – ladies first!"

She extended one talon into the glass ball to her left, and plunged it inside with more speed and voracity than a vulture. Her nail speared a slip of paper and she pulled it out, unfurled it, cleared her throat and declared into the microphone: "Mollie Brewsmith!"

A large, blotchy girl in the shapeless gray clothes that marked the orphanage kids out from the rest of the district trudged up onto stage, shoulders hunched but oddly hopeful. Polyxena positioned her hastily and returned to the bowl - "Maysilee Donner!"

 _"No!"_

Haymitch's head spun round to his right, where the girls of his own age were being kept. One of Ana's friends was being clutched at by her doppelganger, whom he recognised as Lilymae; the girl who had stopped him in the town square the other day. The twins were clinging desperately to each other, and it took three Peacekeepers to separate them. Lilymae collapsed back into the arms of Hickey, the apothecary girl, and sobbed great, echoing sobs as her sister was torn away from her. Haymitch glanced at Roan, who had blanched white and looked as though he was about to be sick.

Polyxena acted as though Maysilee was calm and dry-eyed instead of trembling with tears. She edged over to the boy's bowl, and Haymitch felt the muscles of everyone around him tense at once.

"And the first of the boys is… Terrance Bluejoy!"

"What?" a small, high voice shrieked from the front of the crowd. "No! Mother! Mother, don't let them! I shan't do it! _Mother_!"

Rising onto tiptoe to see what was happening, Haymitch observed a Peacekeeper edge towards the twelve-year-olds and the source of the noise. "Come on, kid," he said, "there's no point –"

"Get your hands _off_ of me!" the child screamed, and despite the mood Haymitch felt a laugh bubble up through his chest. He hid it as he pretended to scratch his nose, and watched with mild amusement as the fat, blond boy was escorted up onto the stage. He was the shortest of all three reaped so far, red-faced and snotty, dressed in a nice shirt and shorts that displayed his sparkling clean knees.

"Bet you twenty he's the victor," Haymitch said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Don't be a prat, Haymitch."

"I'm telling you, it's a tactic –"

 _"Haymitch Abernathy!"_

"What?" he said, looking wildly around to see who had called his name. What was he supposed to have done this time?

It wasn't until he saw Roan's expression that he knew something was wrong.

And then there were Peacekeeper gloves pulling at his leather collar, forcing him out into the main walkway, and almost numbly Haymitch felt himself wrench out of their grasp and walk up onto the stage as though he was just wandering through the Hob. He took his intended position without prompt from the escort and at last noticed the silence that had fallen, even among the racketeers who were normally whispering and bartering for the entire reaping. He could see Sae, who had her arm around a weeping Sef; Roan, who had a hand pressed to his mouth; Ana, who was looking everywhere but him; his mother. Denton. Everyone was looking at him, Rath Abernathy's boy with the whip wounds and the smart mouth, and counting the days until his death.

 _You aren't going to let them be_ right _, are you?_

For once, the voice in his head that wasn't his did not fill him with dread and disgust. Instead, it made a decision for him. Haymitch decided, there on the stage with the eyes of Panem on him, that he was not going to die for the foreseeable future.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Polyxena cried, "I give you the District 12 tributes of the fiftieth annual Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in their favor!"

%

Haymitch sat in the nice, albeit neglected room and waited for Ana. He was allowed visitors, he knew that, and even if it was just a minute he wanted to see her face before –

The door opened and Sef ran in, flinging herself into Haymitch's arms with such a force that the sofa nearly toppled over. "You bastard," she sobbed, as Greasy Sae walked in behind her. "You absolute, complete, inarguable _bastard_!"

"That's enough," Sae ordered, "let the boy stand." Sef obediently slunk off of him and Haymitch rose into the ageing woman's sharp gaze, feeling assessed such as he had never felt before.

"Well?" she said. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm going to win," Haymitch said.

"Well, I know _that_ ," Sae said impatiently, "but _how_? Are you going to fight? Run? Hide?"

"None of those are really my style."

"Then what? Come on, boy. We don't have much time."

"I'll be clever," Haymitch heard himself saying.

Greasy Sae finally smiled. "That's more like it," she said, and held out her hand. "Don't let us down."

Haymitch took it and shook. "Thanks," he said, "for not crying."

"Bastard," Sef repeated snottily. "Good luck."

"Come here," he said, and the whore trotted forward. He seized her waist, pulled her in and kissed her, trying not to grimace at the taste of her rotten teeth. Then he hugged her again and said in her ear, "Just to tide you over 'til I get back."

She stepped away and wiped her eyes. "I'll hold you to that," she said with a small, wet smile. And then they were gone.

The door had been closed five, ten, a thousand minutes when Roan walked in and silently embraced his friend in his small hunter's limbs. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do," he said.

"Oh, so you want me to lose?" Haymitch asked, patting him on the back.

"I'm going to miss your bad jokes."

"They'll be back before you know it," Haymitch assured him. "Look after Ana while I'm gone, will you? I don't want anything to happen to her."

"Of course," said Roan. "I'll make sure your mother and Denton have plenty food, too."

"I'll pay you when I get back –"

"Don't be ridiculous," Roan said, "I'm your friend. You don't owe me. You remember what I taught you, right? How to hunt and fish and set snares, you'll need it if you want to survive."

"I'm sure I'll figure it out at some point," Haymitch said breezily. "Go, before the Peacekeepers drag you out."

"You're going to win," Roan said fiercely.

"I know. See you in a few weeks."

He turned away as the door closed again, and didn't look back when it reopened. In fact, he didn't move at all until he felt a small, warm hand slip into his own.

He looked over his shoulder and down at Denton. "No need to look so scared," he said, "I'm going to win. I always win."

His brother's face broke into a large and impermanent smile. "Yeah, you do," he said, "except for when you're fighting me. I always beat you."

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Well, it's a good thing you're not in the Games then," he said, "isn't it?" Resting his hands on the kid's shoulders, he turned and saw his mother stood in the middle of the room, wringing her hands. "I'm coming back," he said. "I swear. I'm coming home."

"You'd better," said his mother, "because I'm not losing another one."

Then she was in his arms with Denton squashed between them and weeping into his shoulder, and Haymitch was the only one holding the three of them up. "And when I do," he said, rubbing her back, "we'll live in one of the big houses, and we'll never be hungry again."

"Can the dog come?" asked Denton in a muffled voice. "Please?"

"Fine. But only 'cause you asked so nicely."

"I love you," his mother whispered, "oh, Haymitch. My baby, I'm so proud of you. You're such a wonderful man. You deserve so much better."

"No, I don't," he said, "I deserve exactly this."

A Peacekeeper chose that exact moment to interrupt. "Time's up," he said, "you've got a train to catch."

"Wait!" Denton protested. "But we haven't –"

"No buts."

Haymitch's mother scooped up her youngest son, gave the other's hand one last, tight squeeze and left.

"Wait," said Haymitch, before the Peacekeeper could follow them. "There should be someone else."

"What?"

"Analiese Smythe," he said, "so-high, blonde. Pretty. She should be waiting for me."

The Peacekeeper shook his head. "You're bang out of luck, kid," he said, "there's nobody left."

And then, Haymitch was alone.


	6. Chapter 6

Afterwards, Haymitch didn't remember getting escorted onto the train, or the prattle of Polyxena Pots as she explained the procedure to the four mentorless tributes, or the almost pitying stare of the Avoxes as they walked, single file, in a trailing line down the plush corridors. No – the first thing he remembered of what became the second part of his life, the life of a Games child, was the food.

He smelt it before he heard it: a rich, almost sickening smell creeping up the hallway towards them. In all his life of soot and strong metal, Haymitch had never encountered a smell like that before. It had weight to it; it had body, it was heavy, he could feel it in his skin and crawling up his nostrils and over his parched lips. It was so dizzying that he wondered if this is the effect people tried to get with alcohol, with morphling, with the rainbow pills they popped in the Capitol. Behind him, he heard Mollie moan.

Then the automatic door slid open and Haymitch blacked out for a moment. The next waking moment he was hunched over the table, grabbing handfuls of everything in his dirty Seam hands, stuffing cake and chicken and grapes and bread and a dozen other things he didn't even recognize into his mouth all at once, gagging on the fullness and the flavour and forcing it down anyway. He hadn't even thought that he was hungry, but he ate more, then, than he had ever done in his life and, when done, collapsed back into a chair as overstuffed as he was, closed his eyes and whimpered.

He didn't open them again until he heard a scoff, at which point he deigned to raise one eyelid and beheld Bluejoy, the fat blond boy who filled the other male tribute role, looking at him across the still heavily-laid table with his upper lip distorted in disgust.

"Got a problem, kid?" he asked, clasping his sticky hands behind his head. The boy flushed even more scarlet than his natural hue and looked down at his plate, from which he was eating with polished silverware. Maysilee was curled up in her own seat and looked fairly green at the thought of eating, while Mollie seemed to have done much the same as Haymitch and was now rubbing her distended gut with the occasional happy sigh.

"Well," said Polyxena with a warm smile, "I'm glad to see you're all making the most of the Capitol's hospitality. When you're finished eating, the Avoxes will show you to your cabins – but feel free to make use of the entire train. It's all here for you! We are due to arrive in the Capitol tomorrow morning, so amuse yourself until then however you wish. Remember, we're all here to make sure you're happy and fulfilled, having the best time possible before you go into the arena –"

"And get killed," Haymitch finished for her.

Polyxena's smile did not falter. "Now, now, Mr Abernathy," she said, "don't be so pessimistic. You should hope for the best –"

"Right," he interrupted, "that forty-seven other kids die instead of me. That I'm good enough entertainment to keep the audience rooting for me."

"It's not just entertainment, though, is it?" Mollie said suddenly, and his eyes darted over to her. She was sitting up straight now, elbows resting on the mahogany table, and was staring down Polyxena with a fierceness that didn't belong in the eyes of a long-defeated orphan. "It's a reminder that we're not as good as you. You can try and make it pretty, and fun, and _happy_ as much as you want, as though it's some kind of talent competition, but it's just slaughter to make sure we don't do what District 13 did. Even the victor gets sent back to their old district. The greatest win we can possibly get doesn't bring us anywhere close to the life you have."

Polyxena blinked once – twice – thrice, eyelashes fluttering like pinned butterflies. Haymitch wondered if her smile was permanently, surgically frozen onto her face. "You are capable," she said in the same simpering tone she had always been speaking in, "of achieving anything you wish. All you need is dedication and support from the Capitol."

"Right," said Mollie, standing up. "Great. See you tomorrow, then."

%

That evening, the food Haymitch had eaten circled back on him and he found himself hunched over the porcelain toilet, hurling it all back up until he was as empty as he had been before they had got on the train.

"Air," he mumbled to himself, "I need air."

One hand pressed against the wall to keep himself upright, Haymitch slowly made his way to the rear of the train. He could hear the muted howl of the wind, and eventually he found himself in the glass half-open caboose that was filled with squashy cushions, fireflies and Mollie.

"Nice speech earlier," Haymitch said, dropping onto a seat opposite her. "It shut the escort up for a good ten minutes."

"I do my best," Mollie replied. "What's your name, kid?" 

"Abernathy. And I'm only two years younger than you."

"Rath's boy, yeah? I remember him." 

"Lucky you," Haymitch mumbled, looking out into the pitch night.

"A friend of mine found his body, what, ten years ago now? Thought I'd see you and your brother in the orphanage by the end of the week. But you did alright, didn't you? Got that survival streak in you. Should be useful in the next few weeks."

"Why're you encouraging me?" Haymitch asked, narrowing his eyes at her. "You're trying to – to lull me into a false sense of security, right? Or something. Well, I'm not fooled."

Mollie stared at him for a moment, then snorted with laughter. "I'm not nearly clever enough to do that," she chuckled. "But bless you for thinking it."

"Then why?"

"It'd be nice if I knew the Victor."

"But don't you –"

"No," said Mollie, "not even a little bit." Upon seeing Haymitch's dumbfounded expression, she leaned forward and started to wring her hands. "Nothing like eighteen years in the worst orphanage in Panem to kill your will to live."

"But if you win," said Haymitch, "things'll be different."

"Only on the outside," Mollie said, with a smile. "They beat the life out of me a long time ago, kid. At least the Arena'll make for a half decent funeral."

Haymitch stared; he couldn't help it. It was impossible for him to imagine that gut instinct, that burning will to live, snuffing out. Even if he lost everything and everyone, like this girl had, he would still do it out of spite.

"Don't feel sorry for me," said Mollie, "please. I've never been pitied before – I wouldn't know how to deal with it." She stood up and stepped past him, ruffling his hair as she did. "May the odds be ever in your favor, Rath's boy. Shit knows, they haven't been up 'til now."

 _Nice to know the memory of me is still alive,_ said the voice in Haymitch's head as the door slid shut behind Mollie.

"Piss off," he said out loud. With nobody to hear it, his voice was lost on the endless velvety night. A moonlit Panem fell out from under the train in front of him, unfolding strange shapes of landscapes he had never seen before and might never see again. Above, the sky had a great rift of stars through it, a mortal wound bleeding white and amber lights. He'd found a book in the Twelve library about stars – astronomy, it said – a few years ago. They used to call the rift the Milky Way. The stars around it were supposed to map out stories: old legends, half-forgotten save for the names and shapes caught in pinpricks of light. Haymitch could just about figure out the North Star, which was useful. The rest of them had just been stories for the sake of… stories. Pretty things. The kind of stuff they made in District One.

When he won, Haymitch decided, he would memorise every constellation. Oh, what a luxury it was, being able to afford the stories of the stars.


	7. Chapter 7

The first thing that really struck Haymitch in the Capitol, the only element that would stick out in the haze of memories that he kept with him for the rest of his life, was the carpet in the lobby of the Training Centre. It was so thick that it was like walking on settled snow that kept shifting and changing its patterns underfoot. It was a dark red, the colour of venous blood, and Haymitch's boots were dropping mud and soot all over it. _You can take the kid out of the Seam,_ he thought vaguely, as Polyxena Pots ushered them into a huge glass elevator. _But you can't get the Seam out of the kid. No matter how much you wash them. Ha._

The floor Twelve penthouse was big and airy and garish, with floor-to-ceilling windows around the entire thing that looked out on the glittering nightlights of Panem's central city. It was a little dizzying for the new tributes, none of whom had ever been so high up in their lives.

Polyxena Pots was talking again, although maybe she had never stopped in the first place. The Bluejoy kid's bottom lip was wobbling and he was clutching at the fringed silk hem of her skirt with her fist, which the escort was choosing to ignore. Maysilee Donner had walked away to one of the windows, taken a seat on the floor beside it and was looking out at the night sky, which was pitch black now from all the night pollution. Mollie was nodding every now and again at Pots' nattering, but her eyes kept drifting towards the dining table laid with a variety of finger food. Haymitch found himself alone, still stood by the elevator, hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket that still carried traces of home.

How come Ana didn't come and say goodbye?

"Do we have to stay in here all the time?" he asked suddenly, stopping Polyxena mid-sentence in a speech about all the wonderful things they should expect to happen to them in the next few days.

"Sorry?" she asked, blinking with lashes that looked like butterfly wings. Maybe they _were._

"In this room, I mean. Are we locked in?"

"No. The whole Training Centre is available to you for the duration of -"

"Right," said Haymitch, turning around and stepping back into the elevator. "Thanks."

"Wait there, young man -!"

The crystal doors slid shut as Haymitch hit a random button for any floor other than this one, closing his eyes and tilting his head back with a sigh. He didn't want to be around them, he realised. Not Pots or the other tributes or anyone. Mollie he couldn't bear to look at now he knew her past and her plan, and the others might try to forge some kind of alliance with him. He didn't want that. He didn't need allies if he was going to win this. No; he could do it all by himself.

The elevator took him down and opened up onto a dimly lit room that seemed to be below street level. It was a bar, he realized, with a sinking feeling. Ghosts of his father lingered around places like this. But the speed of the elevator was making him feel a little sick, and he could not face riding it a third time in five minutes.

The bar was almost empty. A couple of men in purple Gamemakers robes were talking a booth in one corner, and only a handful of stools that faced the mahogany serving counter were taken. It seemed far too grand a place to be secreted away in the basement of the Training Centre. Then again, the Capitol had plenty of grandeur to burn.

"You look lost, kid."

A big, dark-skinned man (District Eleven kind of dark, if Haymitch had to guess) had walked in behind him, already holding a near-empty liquor bottle. "I'm right where I want to be," Haymitch lied, stepping back to allow the man to pass. "Don't let me hold you up."

The man laughed – a loud, chesty laugh that echoed around the bar and caused its few other patrons to look up with disgruntled expressions on their faces. It also made Haymitch smile, if only just a little. "Chaff," said the man, holding out the arm not grasping the bottle for Haymitch to shake.

Haymitch lifted his own hand only to realize that he was faced, not with another palm and fingers, but a stump that had been neatly sewn shut. His surprise must have registered on his face, because Chaff let out another laugh.

"Every time," he chuckled.

"That your only joke?" Haymitch asked, shoving his own hand back into his pocket.

"Why, you wanna steal it?" Chaff asked, setting off for the bar itself beckoning for Haymitch to follow him. "C'mon, I'll buy you a drink. What's the name again, kid?"

"Abernathy. District Twelve."

"What d'you drink, Abernathy-District-Twelve? What's your vice?"

"Water," Haymitch said automatically, taking a seat at the bar next to Chaff. The tender was an Avox, who pulled a tumbler of brown bourbon up for Chaff and decanted water from a bottle for Haymitch.

"Cheers to that." The glasses clinked together. "Why you down here instead of hanging with your district, Abernathy?"

Haymitch shrugged. "Don't see why I need to."

"Ah," said Chaff. "So you _really_ wanna win, huh?"

The water was the cleanest Haymitch had ever seen, and it had a faint sweetness to it. "Maybe. What about your tributes? I'm guessing you're here to mentor as well as drink."

"Oh," said Chaff, "mine are all dead already. The fact they're walking around and crying doesn't mean jack shit."

"So you're hiding from them," Haymitch guessed, and Chaff nodded.

"Nothing wrong with a little cowardice and a lot of alcohol if it gets you through the night," he told the younger tribute.

"You sound like my father."

"Your father sounds like a wise man."

"He was a bastard. He beat my mother and crawled off to die because he couldn't face what he'd done to his family."

"Like I said," Chaff replied. "Wise man."

Haymitch laughed. He couldn't help it. People at home stepped carefully, softly around the shadow of Rath Abernathy, and it made a nice change to hear someone talk about him as brazenly as Chaff just did. Haymitch watched the Victor – who didn't seem to be more than five or six years older than him – knock back the glass of bourbon and gesture to the Avox for another.

"Sure I can't tempt you?" Chaff asked, finishing the second glass as quickly as he did the first.

"Yep. Got any advice for me, then?"

"I come down here to get _away_ from mentoring, kid."

"Twelve's last Victor died before I was born," he said. "Screwed too many of the wrong kind of whore and rotted away too quick to be of any use to me. Our escort cares more about her wig than the kids she's meant to look after, which is… pretty standard for escorts, actually. The trainers aren't gonna favor me over the other forty-seven kids even if I paid them to. No pressure, but you're my only hope. If you don't help me, then my death is on your hands."

Chaff narrowed his eyes. "That's a cold move."

"I know."

The man considered it for a moment, looking not at Haymitch but at the booth of Gamemakers in the corner with a strange expression on his face. "Fine," he said, in a more serious tone than what he had been using before. "Carry me back to the eleventh floor when I'm too drunk to stand, and until then I'll tell you everything I can remember about how to win. It's not a lot, but it's something. Deal?"

"Deal," said Haymitch. "Just don't ask me to shake on it. I'm not falling for that again."

"So you're smart," Chaff grinned. "Good. You'll need that. So the tribute's parade is tomorrow night. We'll write that off, since you don't have a hope in hell of standing out, and even if you can fight -"

"I can."

"- It won't be anywhere near enough the show that the Careers put on to impress any Gamemakers. Keep your head down and mind your own until the interviews. With a mouth like yours, that's your best chance to make them remember you…"

%

Chaff was not wrong. The Tribute's Parade was a poorly organised mess of colour and shouting, during most of which Haymitch had been sulking in his itchy coal-miner's outfit and trying to stay out of the way of the other tributes. In training he and Mollie hung around the survival skills areas together, failing to identify which berries were poisonous and building fires that seemed impossible to light.

"All this is great news for me," Mollie had said, "but you're gonna need to learn some of this if you wanna win."

"Why?" Haymitch asked. "What if it's all poisonous? What if there's nothing to build a fire with anyway? We don't know what's coming."

"Valid point," Mollie said, taking one of the definitely edible berries and popping it in her mouth.

"What's your suicide plan, anyway?"

"Step off the podium too soon," she said. "Not straight away, obviously. I wanna get everyone's attention."

"Oh," said Haymitch. "I get it. You wanna make a statement."

"Doesn't everyone?" Mollie asked, helping herself to another berry. "I'll wait right until the last second, I think."

"What if you miss the last second? You could get distracted."

"Then I'll piss off that thug-looking District One girl," Mollie said, nodding in the direction of her subject. Unusually for the typically slender and more beautiful of the Career districts, this particular blonde tribute was huge and burly, throwing axes around like they were nothing. "She looks like she has trouble processing her anger."

"She really does, doesn't she?" Haymitch agreed. "Wanna try building a snare next?"

"Not really," said Mollie. "But I haven't got anything better to do with my time."

He passed through the training with a score of seven, which was impressive considering that all he did during the solo observation was sit and sharpen a stick into a knife. Haymitch spent most of his free time either in his room, the peaceful rooftop garden it seemed nobody else had discovered, and carrying a blacked-out Chaff from the basement bar to the eleventh floor. It was in doing so that he met Seeder, a nice woman who seemed used to her co-mentor's nonsense, who offered to let Haymitch stay for dinner with them and the four Eleven tributes. He appreciated the offer, but declined. He had no desire to get to know any more people that were only going to die in a few days anyway.

And then, it was the interviews. Haymitch's stylist had shaved his jawline clean and trimmed his hair, pushing it back from his face in a manner that he was not enjoying in the slightest. The suit he was wearing was gray, with black accents to look like coal dust, and Haymitch had vetoed the shoes in favor of wearing his own boots. The mud had still been scrubbed off of them, however. It was the cleanest Haymitch had ever been.

He was the last person to be interviewed by Caesar Flickerman. The rest of them seemed to drag on forever, girl then boy then girl then boy, and for the thousandth time Haymitch was struck by the sheer size of these Games. Polyxena was fussing over the Bluejoy kid, whom she had chosen as her favorite for some reason beyond Haymitch's comprehension. Maysilee Donner was hiding somewhere. Mollie was sulking in a frilly orange dress that suited her about as much as it would a gorilla. Haymitch kept to himself, avoiding even Chaff as he watched the tributes slowly filter out of the room to be interviewed by the face of the Capitol himself.

He wondered if Ana would be watching. His mother would've tried and failed to talk Denton out of seeing any of it, and they would both be in the Hob now, at Greasy Sae's table, clutching uneaten bowls of food other people had bought them out of pity, with the damn dog probably curled up at Denton's feet. Roan would be in the woods, hunting, unable to bring himself to watch live; he would catch up on the news later, by word of mouth. But Ana… was she at home, sat with her family and their own private television, biting her tongue lest she give away her secret feelings for him when he appeared on screen? Maybe she had joined the Donners, where she could be vocal in her distress, or even braved the dangers of the Hob. Maybe she was hiding in her room, unable to face it at all. Haymitch couldn't have put money on any one of them being the truth. All he knew was that he missed her.

"Haymitch!"

Polyxena Pots' voice was hot and sharp in his ear. He could feel her pushing at the small of his back, nails digging in like claws through his clothes as she shepherded him to the edge of the stage. His ears were ringing with the noise of the sound system and the cheering crowd, and his mouth felt drier than ash. "Five," someone was saying. "Four, three, two…"

"Ladies and gentlemen," Caesar Flickerman cried out as Haymitch walked out into the blinding light of the interview stage. "I give you our final tribute of the night – _Haymitch Abernathy!"_


	8. Chapter 8

It was blazing hot under the stage lights; so hot that Haymitch wondered how people didn't sweat all their makeup off within five minutes. The effect was dizzying, and for a moment Haymitch nearly he nearly baulked - turned on his heel and ran into the labyrinth of the studio, giving him hours before they caught him and dragged him out into the light.

 _Don't you dare, kid. They'll eat you alive if you do._

So he straightened his shoulders and strolled out onto the stage as if it was just the main, ash-lined road from the Seam to town, shaking the green-haired host's soft, warm hand with nothing more than a cool glance acknowledging their audience as he did. He fell back into the seat, pulled one ankle up over the knee of his other leg and tilted his head back so that he was looking down his nose, just a little, at his spectators.

"Saving the best 'til last, I hope?" Caesar asked Haymitch, with a green-edged smile.

"That's up to you, I guess." He kept his voice cool, but not hostile. It was difficult, though.

"Of course!" Caesar said with a laugh. "Now, Haymitch – you're from a part of District 12 known as the Seam, are you not?"

"Yeah. And?"

"What's it like growing up in a place like that? I understand that it's a world away from the luxuries we've all grown accustomed to here," Caesar said, waving a hand around him at all the glitz and finery.

"You get used to it," Haymitch said. "I wouldn't mind getting un-used to it, though."

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd – good. He could get them on his side with comments like that. For once, his smart mouth was actually getting him _out_ of trouble. A little bit of flattery to soothe the sharp comments, and he would be set. "You guys have it pretty good. I'm not ready to give that up just yet."

"Ah, _ah_ – so you're in this thing to win it are you, Mr Abernathy?"

 _What kind of question is that?_ he thought, but did not say it. "I'm not going to settle for second place, no."

"Even _second_ will be twice as hard, this year. So, Haymitch, what do you make of the Games havng one hundred percent more competitors than usual?"

Haymitch shrugged. "I don't see that it makes much difference," he replied. "They'll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same."

Another laugh, louder this time. They really did think he was funny. Haymitch turned to the audience smiling delightedly up at him and gave them a small, close-lipped smirk in return.

 _These people are not your friends,_ the harsh voice in the back of his head reminded him. _The crowd at your coronation are the same as those at your execution. They aren't here for you, kid. They're here for the show._

Then a buzzer was going off and Caesar was saying his goodbyes as Haymitch was ushered off the stage and into the claw-tipped hands of Polyxena Pots. Here in the shadows the coolness stung, prickling at the sweat under his collar, and he was only half-aware of the escort fussing over him.

"You did well!" she was exclaiming, buzzing round him like a bluebottle. "Ever so well!"

Over her shoulder, Mollie was leant against the wall in a vile gray dress. "Well done," she mouthed at him, which meant a damn sight more than whatever Pots was saying. He winked at her, and she laughed.

It was enough to make anyone hopeful.

%

Haymitch couldn't sleep. He lay on his back, staring at the intricately carved ceiling and trying not to think about how, in mere hours now, he would be in the arena. The problem was that trying not to think about something almost always meant he could think about nothing else. His mother always used to say that about pink elephants.

Now he was thinking about pink elephants in the arena; mutts that disembowelled with tusks and strangled with trunks. This was not going well.

He sat up with a grunt, ousting visions of being trampled beneath giant, fuchsia feet, and walked towards the bathroom to shower for the third time that night. He was just passing the door to his bedroom when he heard someone crying on the other side of it.

It wasn't particularly _nice_ crying. They were big, ugly sobs, interspersed with the rattling noise of someone sniffing a lot of snot back up their nostrils. Even Denton hadn't cried like that for years. Haymitch hesitated, hand hovering over the doorknob.

"Not your problem," he muttered. "Not your problem, not your… _shit._ "

He opened the door and walked out into the lounge, which was lit only by the glowing city beyond the window. The crying was coming from one of the other bedrooms, which had its door ajar. Haymitch slunk over and pushed it open properly with his foot.

The merchant kid, Bluejoy, was sat on the middle of the floor with a puffy red face with various liquids streaming down it and off his chin. He was so absorbed in his own misery that he didn't notice Haymitch enter until the latter coughed, loudly, twice.

"Leave me _alone!"_ he wailed, and Haymitch sighed.

Three weeks after their father had died, Denton had started crying and didn't stop for two days. He didn't sleep, he didn't eat (neither did Haymitch or his mother, but they didn't have a choice), he didn't do anything except sit in bed and howl like a wounded dog. It was driving their mother, who had enough to be getting along with, to the brink of insanity. So on the second night Haymitch, still a kid himself, had picked his brother up and carried him out past the Seam to the meadow by the fence, sat him down and, instead of begging or cajoling or threatening or bribing him to stop like they had been doing for the last forty hours, simply sat there and waited for him to run out of breath.

It had worked. Denton had, eventually, been so stunned by the lack of response that he had lapsed into silence, mouth opening and closing like a fish gasping for water. "I'll look after you," Haymitch had told him. "Alright?"

Denton had closed his mouth and nodded. They had sat there in silence for a while longer, and before midnight Haymitch had returned home with the kid asleep in his arms, mercifully peaceful.

Now, Haymitch sat down next to Bluejoy and waited, not even looking at him, tapping his thumb against his forearm and whistling an old mining tune under his breath. It was barely two minutes before Bluejoy stopped sobbing and lapsed into a much milder, more manageable hiccough.

"How're you so calm?" he asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

Haymitch shrugged. "Crying's not gonna change anything," he said.

"But I wanna go home."

"You can't."

"You're supposed to say I can win if I try hard enough," Bluejoy sniffed.

"Life isn't that convenient. Sorry."

"You're _mean._ "

"Yep." Haymitch looked at the kid, with his dumpling-shaped face and short, carefully trimmed hair, and realized he wasn't going to achieve anything with a big rant about the unfairness of life right now. "C'mon," he said. "You like hot chocolate?" Bluejoy nodded. "They can send some up."

He took the kid into the kitchen and, within minutes, two mugs of steaming hot chocolate had appeared. "You should blow your nose," Haymitch said, handing the kid one. "It's gross, letting it drip like that."

"I don't have a handkerchief."

Haymitch grabbed a fine linen napkin from the dining table and handed it over. With a noise like a cat throwing up into a trumpet, Bluejoy emptied his nostrils. He handed back and Haymitch threw it under the sofa with a grimace. "Better?" he asked, and the boy nodded.

"You think you're going to win," he mumbled, taking a big gulp of chocolate.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not giving myself another option," Haymitch explained and Bluejoy, a strangely serious expression on his face, nodded gravely. It was kind of funny. "Are you going to try and fight?"

"I don't know. I'm scared."

"Everyone is," said Haymitch.

"Even the Careers?"

"Especially the Careers. They've got the most to lose."

"You did good in your interview," Bluejoy said.

"I know."

"I don't think they liked me. They kept laughing at me. They laughed at you, too, but –"

"I wanted them to."

"You think you can win by making them laugh?"

 _Here for the show,_ echoed the voice of Rath Abernathy. "No," said Haymitch. "I don't need their help, anyway."

Bluejoy put his now-empty mug down. There was a line of brown foam on his top lip. "Can we be allies?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because you're annoying," Haymitch grinned. "And I'll kill you to shut you up."

"Fine. I wouldn't want to ally with a Seam-dweller like you, anyway." He stood up. "I'm going back to bed."

"Goodnight, my lord," Haymitch said drily, as he trotted off back to his room.

Bluejoy stopped in the doorway and turned back to face him. "Haymitch?" he said, so quietly he almost couldn't be heard.

"Yeah?"

"Good luck."

"You too, kid."

The door clicked shut. Haymitch looked down at his untouched mug of chocolate, then walked to the bathroom in his room and poured it down the sink. He took his shirt of and fell face-down into bed, not bothering to pull the covers over himself, and within seconds of his head hitting the pillow he was asleep.


End file.
